Seeing as how most of the organization is forced to wear a helmet and everybody else looks miserable and/or ridiculously tired, the First Order seems like a terrible place to work.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson at least points out one benefit. “The health plan is tremendous,” he quips. “(But) they have very few railings (on their spaceships) so the safety conditions are abhorrent.”

The Empire was a fascist regime and deadly army that ruled the galaxy with an iron fist in George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy, and the First Order has designs on the same in The Last Jedi (in theaters now), the second in the current trilogy. After the explosion of their Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens, the bad guys are on the warpath and worse than ever, placing pieces of their military machine in every region of space following their destruction of the New Republic.

Darth Vader (left, voiced by James Earl Jones) leads the forces of the Empire in 'Return of the Jedi.'(Photo11: Lucasfilm)

But where there’s unstoppable evil, there’s a bunch of underdog heroes: The Emperor and Darth Vader had to face the pesky Rebel Alliance in the past, while a new Resistance has arrived to foil the First Order’s Supreme Leader Snoke (played via performance capture by Andy Serkis), his apprentice/enforcer Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and constantly embattled General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson).

“The First Order isn’t exactly a harmonious happy family,” says Gwendoline Christie, who plays the organization’s armored taskmistress Captain Phasma. “There’s an awful lot of infighting and jostling for position and people wanting to advance — you know, that mad, driving ambition where people will stop at nothing and step on all of your corpses to achieve what they want.”

Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie, left) leads a battalion of Stormtroopers — and is the lone woman of power in the male-dominated First Order.(Photo11: Jonathan Olley)

The Empire “felt very old guard in a way,” and the First Order “feels like a much younger organization in every sense of the word,” says Johnson, who immediately picked up on “a little bit of snippiness” between Kylo and Hux in The Force Awakens. So for The Last Jedi, “more opportunity for internal intrigue to me seemed very exciting.”

Comparatively, Gleeson thinks there was more of a hierarchy in the Empire. In the first Star Wars, Kylo's granddad Vader worked for Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing), who was under the Emperor on the food chain; Hux and Kylo are essentially at the same level, which creates “a much more aggressive relationship,” Gleeson says. “Technically, you’re all on the same side, but really the only true side of everybody in the First Order is the side of themselves.”

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is a lightsaber-wielding apprentice of Snoke who's not all about making friends within the First Order.(Photo11: Lucasfilm)

Driver agrees that getting along with co-workers isn’t overly important to Kylo. “Darkness can be a friend," he says. "I’m more in that zone.”

So it's safe to say no one's giving Snoke a "World's Best Boss" mug for his birthday. Everybody’s pretty scared of their mysterious Supreme Leader, who’s “not particularly forgiving,” Gleeson says. “You think your boss is bad, try Snoke being the guy who decides if you get a promotion or a raise.”

The First Order's Supreme Leader Snoke (played via performance capture by Andy Serkis) is a guy awash in mystery.(Photo11: Lucasfilm)

Hux himself has designs on being the “top dog,” Gleeson adds, which is why he’s a very on-edge guy. “He’s not listening to Bach or meditating or doing yoga. That’s not how he gets rid of his stress. He certainly internalizes it. He’s not a well person.”

For Hux's sake, let's hope Snokecare has low copays.

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Before you head out to see the new movie, here's a recap of where the saga left off with 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens.'
USA TODAY